clive_murray_white

<p>There was mention that this painting was pinned to the wall, this makes me think that it may not be on a stretcher and therefore behaves more like a wall hanging than a painting. Or in other words part of the character of the work is the 3D effects of hanging and shadows caused by the non-flat surface against a flat wall.</p> <p>If this is the case I'd be looking to retain that in my photograph and would start looking at ways to present it as part of the environment it is located in. I'd take it off the wall and light the room so that there is and even spread of light or at least ensure that there isn't a light fall-off in one direction. Take a few test shots to see how the light really falls and work out how much of the room needs to be included in the shot, because I always shoot RAW I wouldn't worry too much if the room was a bit dark to the eye.</p> <p>Replace the picture and fire away! For this kind of work I always use my 45 PC-E everything on manual, live view and timer or remote for firing on the D800. Tonal values etc can be adjusted in Lightroom. Another very handy tool for this kind of job is "perspective" crop in Photoshop.</p>

<p>all fixed, thanks everyone, bracketing accidentally on, all the best, thanks again</p>

<p>I regularly take 2 pictures with my D800 of the same subject within a second or so of each other using aperture priority, the pictures are invariably differently exposed, like this, pic No: 1, 1000 @ f5.00, pic No: 2 120 @ f 5.00. </p> <p>Pic No: 2 was correctly exposed.<br> <br> Any reason for this?</p>

<p>I have both the Voigtlander and the 1.8 G I personally like the character of the Voigtlander better though manual focus makes it more a specialty lens, 1.8 G isn't bad especially used with lens correction in Lightroom, way outside the price range is the Nikkor PC-E 45 it blows them booth away though not as quick.</p>

<p>you could buy a Leica Monochrom Frank - http://petapixel.com/2013/07/22/review-leica-monochrom-is-not-quite-a-black-and-white-decision/</p>

<p>Re: one trick ponies or good for anything else?</p> <p>Aren't all primes one trick ponies very good at doing one thing well, or even very well?</p>

<p>I looked long and hard at these but settled for the Lensbaby alternatives when Kent or was it Andrew suggested their 50mm single optic pretty much does the same thing, I've added the 80mm Edge lens to my kit. Of course with Lensbaby you also get the tilt function as well.</p> <p>I do quite a lot of website work for a wine maker with cellar door sales and a restaurant and have been surprised at how often my Lensbaby stuff has saved the day by turning very ordinary looking scenes into something pretty exciting. Though there is always the danger with these lenses to over do it. </p>

<p>I use a variety of MF lenses on my D800, PC-e 45, Voigtlander 58, Nikon 75-150 and 2 Lensbaby, mainly for landscape and studio work. I never use live view any more for the landscapes and just trust my eye through the very adequate D800 viewfinder, I occasionally take a quick look at the conformation lights, and invariably see that my concept of focus matches Nikon's. My eyesight is poor.</p> <p>For the studio work, all done manual focus, tripod + live view, I felt I had a problem with the not particularly great D800 live view and bought 7" monitor and a whole bunch of Small Rig stuff, creating an outfit about the size of a field camera! it gave me more confidence initially, but I soon realised that it was really a waste of money. </p> <p>I have used manual focus for events, the mind does play some silly games with you but that's about all, I'd say just trust your eye and all will be fine.</p>

<p>thanks Andrew - but I'm still puzzled, everything in manual and the camera ignores it, or at least on the screen, is that right, I'll try what you suggest when I get a mo</p>

<p>I experience something like this regularly with my D800 set on manual. It occurs when I'm taking pictures of objects, tripod + live view + ISO 100 + manual focus + timer.</p> <p>I like this set up because I can "see" what the exposure will look like in live view. Ok all that sounds fine doesn't it? but this happens quite often, I take the first picture, play back comes up for a short while and the camera reverts to live view, but quite often looks as if the exposure has changed i.e looks much darker even though no dials have been touched.</p> <p>I've learned to live it but it is quite confusing</p>

<p>I can't find much wrong with your picture it suits the subject very well, harsh contrast and vivid setting won't help nor will putting extra black in it, I would see what a tiny bit of extra clarity and sharpness did. I agree about not going far past F8.</p> <p>I'd test the camera in a different way to how the others have suggested, I'd take a few shots of normal subjects like across the road, a garden etc if these look quite different in terms of softness, i.e. normal then most likely it's something to do with your lighting.</p>

<p>Found the problem!!.............it was far simpler than you could ever imagine, somehow when I last changed my in camera settings, instead of putting it back to RAW, I'd accidentally put it into TIFF, thereby making Lightroom's lens profile function in-operative. </p>

<p>Thanks CPM, I'm hoping that I don't have to upgrade, 4.4 works fine for me</p>

<p>Thanks Erik, the strange thing with Windows 10 is everything may just go back to normal when they do another upgrade. Lets hope eh?</p>

<p>Thanks Shun, the window for upgrades says mine is up to date, the only thing I can think of that may have bearing on it was Windows 10 did a big update the day before.</p>